Business Profitability is ultimately your goal. But getting profits to the level you want them can be elusive and challenging.

The Profitability Workshop focuses on the real world strategies for changing your outcomes, transforming your business into a profitability success.

There are four key focus areas in building a profitable business. They are the foundation of business success. BUT, most businesses need MORE NEW CLIENTS NOW! So every workshop, every coaching program that we offer focuses on the immediate need as well as the keys for your overall business success. These keys or pillars are:

Leadership

Communication

Systems

Impact

Leadership –– is YOU, the CEO of your business. It is your leadership that DRIVES the business and its success.

Communication — is your marketing — the messaging, the delivery, the strategies to get more clients.

Systems — make businesses work efficiently and consistently. When you create systems for your business, THEN you can predict your results.

Impact — this is your business products and services — what you are in business for. But it is also more than that — it is about going beyond your immediate reach out into the community and the world — how big can your business impact footprint be?

During the workshop — which is a LIVE working session — you will begin to map out your plan for increasing profits in YOUR business. I will share with you three key profitability accelerators and implementation design work will begin inside the webinar.This is real world training based on years of experience and research.

Knowing HOW to grow your business is key to actually growing it systematically.

I will share with you three key strategies that work in harmony and show you the potential impact for your business.

In addition, you will receive templates to begin designing your solution.

You will be able to calculate the potential impact on your business revenue during the workshop so that you can decide if the strategies make sense for your company.

Leave with a map of how to implement in your business.

The Profitability Workshop is designed to help YOU develop real world strategies for increasing business profits.

During the workshop — which is a LIVE working session — you will begin to map out your plan for increasing profits in YOUR business. I will share with you three key profitability accelerators and implementation design work will begin inside the webinar.

This is real world training based on years of experience and research.

Knowing HOW to grow your business is key to actually growing it systematically.

Do you have authenticity built into your marketing plan?

You are the leader of your business. Your marketing should reflect YOU. But it also needs to be real and authentic. That in itself keeps you away from the slimy sales feeling that so many of us dislike.

Think about how to bring your unique voice into the marketing mix and shine a light on your business in a new way, that makes you stand out from the crowd and the noise. There is so much marketing out there, it is like everyone is screaming all the time and it overwhelms.

When you bring realness and value into your marketing, then you can stand out. It is about making the sale, but first it is about the relationship. When you go straight for the close, you will turn people off. When you provide value through your relationship, then people will be attracted to you. That is much more powerful, than the other. It is what each business strives for — a flood of new potential customers coming to them instead of trying to chase them down.
I am a relationship person. I love working with people. I love seeing the light bulbs go off — the aha moments.. the shifts in their business outcomes and I LOVE celebrating successes! But now for the hate — I don’t like salesy. Of course, I love customers — but chasing them down — just not my style.

That’s why value, value, value is so important.

When you can provide value, expertise and solutions for your prospects — without giving away the bank, then you are creating a system that is attractive to your potential customers. Then you are attracting new, excited customers!!

Think about what your authentic marketing would look like. Does it change what you are doing right now? Would your results improve? Leave a comment on what YOU think authenticity in your marketing would look like for your business!!

One Incident Can Shift Your Online Reputation Quickly

This last week Starbucks had a terrible incident of racism on the part of an employee and customers. Starbucks quickly went into crisis management mode, closed their stores for an afternoon of training across the country, and apologized to the men involved.

The internet quickly went wild and soon there were reviews coming in about the store. Lots of them and they were not good. Yelp tried to figure out how to handle the response because online harassment of businesses is not their goal. Here’s the full article on Fast Company: HERE

What could your business tolerate? How do you protect your reputation?

As a business owner, you probably already know what your online reputation is. It’s common sense, isn’t it? It’s the impression your company gives, and what people think of you, when they do business with you. People on the Web check your reputation to determine IF they want to do business with you.

Your reputation is key to your business. Imagine, dealing with an incident and an online backlash. A nightmare for a business.

Do you really know what your online reputation is? Do you know what customers are saying about you and your product or your service? Do you know how to fix it if there is bad publicity out there about you or your company? And, maybe most importantly, do you know how to protect your online reputation from being tarnished?

There are now thousands, even millions, of ways for complete strangers to communicate and talk to each other online. Without your knowledge, these people could be posting negative comments about your company, writing negative reviews about your product or service, talk up your competition, or possibly even create a hate site regarding you and your company. How does this affect you?

The first and most obvious way is that other customers could see this and be turned away from your product or company based on just one thing they see online. But there’s even more to worry about than the customer. What if business partners saw a review posted on your alleged bad business practices? You could lose investors, and maybe even future income should that partner be so put off by what they saw that they pull out of your company. What if prospective employees researched your company and decided not to apply because they read a negative blog post posted by a former, angry employee? You could lose a great asset for your company simply due to a disgruntled employee.

Yes, your company’s online reputation affects it, and everything it does. And once you really stop and think about it managing, protecting, and building your business’ online reputation can be a pretty messy matter. But it doesn’t have to be. There are plenty of resources out there that are available to help you and your company, and this report is one of them. Taken step by step, and little by little, your business’ online reputation can be managed, protected, and built into what you need it to be.

New Jersey Business Success Coach, Donna Price, offers Raise the Bar — Strategic Planning workshop for small business leaders to get a head start on their planning for 2018.

The New Year is just around the corner and it is not too early to create a strategic plan for 2018.

October 25, 2017 Newton, NJ: Strategic planning gives business leaders a road map to their company vision and mission. Often small business leaders do not create an effective strategic plan for their business. Many small businesses are so busy being in business that they fail to plan strategically for their growth and then they fail at executing that plan.

Business Success Coach, Donna Price, has put together a one-day small business strategic planning workshop that will provide each business leader with a complete strategic plan at the end of the day. “Strategic planning does not need to be stressful or painful”, Price says, “it should be inspiring and even fun! When you finish your plan, you should feel excited for the future. That’s what happens in our Raise the Bar workshops.”
The group planning setting also provides opportunities for networking, collaboration, idea sharing and more. Group business settings are rich in knowledge and experience.

Effective strategic planning is focused and purposeful, with clear and compelling goals that guide the company forward throughout the year. In addition to the planning session, Donna offers an online goal monitoring system for improving focus and implementation included with the registration fee.
Implementing an effective strategic plan results in business growth. Strategic plans that just sit on the shelf and are never reviewed or updated fail terribly. Having a plan and an implementation strategy changes the results that are achieved.

The Raise the Bar Workshop featuring the Best Year Yet™ system for strategic planning is scheduled for November 27, 2017 in northwest New Jersey. In addition to leaving with an effective and powerful strategic plan, participants will enjoy beautiful northern New Jersey.

Making Marketing Work FOR Your Business is KEY

Marketing isn’t simple. To do it right, it requires a great deal of planning. Small businesses without massive marketing budgets have to handle this aspect of their business themselves and for many this is no easy task. But creating a plan should not be neglected as the plan itself will help your business be more successful in its marketing.
This is why businesses create a marketing plan. A marketing plan is a detailed document that includes the data you need to make marketing decisions and set a course of action that you can implement immediately. Drafting a marketing plan takes a great deal of time and work, but here are a few questions to get you started.

Who Is Your Target Market?

If you’re already selling, take a look at your existing customers. Who are they? What do they like about your company’s products? Try to recall any positive feedback you’ve gotten from them. Naturally, if your brand resonates with these individuals, it will resonate with others like them.

If you don’t already have customers, defining your target market may take a bit more work. Look at companies that offer similar products to yours. Who is buying from them? Who could benefit from your products? Try doing some market research to glean some idea of who your target market is.

What Makes Your Products Unique?

There are bound to be other companies out there selling goods similar to yours. So, what makes yours different? Why would someone buy from you and not another company? Remember here that ‘products’ actually means your offering, which includes services as well. The term refers to whatever people buy from you.

If the unique qualities of your products don’t come to mind immediately, some work needs to be done. Do some soul searching and look for the strengths of your products. If, in the end, you find that your product unfortunately resembles basically everything else on the market, how can you change it to make it unique?

What Do You Want Your Marketing to Achieve?

Every business takes for granted that it needs to market, but why? The ‘why’ is critical. You need to identify exactly what you hope to achieve through your marketing because this will guide all of your efforts and help you choose which tactics are most appropriate. Is it new sales, new leads, new likes, new engagement? What is the ACTION you want people to take as a result of YOUR marketing?

Once you know who your target market is, what’s unique about your product or service, and what you want to get out of your marketing efforts, you’re ready to get started with your marketing plan.

Top 5 Money-Making Action Tasks for Business Growth

Inaction is the death of any business. Without taking regular action every single day to grow your business, inaction will cause your business to become stagnant. Identifying business growth strategies and tactics is critical. Clients will disappear, your sales funnel will be empty, and your revenue will dip to zero in a heartbeat.

Let’s avoid this scenario! Here are five action tasks that will lead to increased income and business growth.

Email Your Customers Regularly.

Contrary to popular belief, email marketing is NOT dead. Email is the easiest way to stay in touch with customers and prospects to let them know about your new offerings or to recommend an affiliate product which pays you a commission.

Focus on Customer Service.

You will never please everyone but you may as well try your best. Inevitably customers will contact you with questions or refund requests so be prepared to answer these requests in a timely manner. Stick to your rules about refunds but never disregard or disrespect a customer. Negative online reviews are easier to find than positive ones.

Raise Your Rates.

When was your last rate increase? Are your prices competitive with the current market of coaches of your caliber? Can your ideal client still afford your new rates? Be confident that your expertise is worth that new rate and break the new carefully to your current clientele so they don’t jump ship.

Repackage Your Offerings.

Don’t reinvent the wheel. Simply take your older content – books, programs, blog posts, etc. – and create new bundles or create an entirely new product. The information or products should obviously be related in topic to appeal to the most people and be sure to price it accordingly.

Create a New Offering for Old Clients.

People buy from those they know, like, and trust, so open up that old client list and create an exclusive offer just for them. Make the offer sexy, exclusive, and time-sensitive to get quick action results.

How Do I Know What to Offer?

This is an age-old question of many coaches and business owners and it boils down to knowing your target audience. How do they want their information presented? What are the hot topics in their industry? What struggles do they have every day? The simplest way to know what they want is to simply ask them.

Another reason coaches don’t know what to offer is because they don’t have a plan, either for their business or who they want to help. Writing a business plan with action steps is imperative for business growth and I’m presenting a very in-depth workshop on this very topic.

“MAPSS – Marketing Action Planning for Strategic Success guides participants through the process of building a highly usable and effective marketing action plan with four modules filled with actionable steps anyone can implement. At the end of the modules you will have a completed 12-month calendar with all your programs, content, and promotions listed along with the action steps necessary to produce it all. If you want to leverage your business to the next level, follow this link MAPSS

Implement These 3 Productivity Hacks Today

Productivity and efficiency are the popular buzz words lately as more and more business owners try to make the most of their time during a busy day. No matter how hard you try, you simply cannot do everything yourself when it comes to running your business. Investing in your business not only decreases stress but it makes your business run more smoothly, therefore increasing profits. But it means that YOU, the owner have to let go of the DIY mindset and grow into your CEO mindset that is a powerful leader and delegate (r)!

Most business leaders need to improve the productivity of their business whether it is a one person shop or 1000 person biz.

If you need to improve your productivity, try these three tips:

1. Outsource It

Rather than being saddled with monotonous tasks and expensive software that you may have to learn, many smart business owners are accepting their limitations and finding expert service providers to take over these tasks. What takes one expert an hour to do can easily take a non-savvy business owner 5 hours to complete. Is that really a good use of your time? You KNOW the answer to this. But the reality of handing tasks over can be challenging.

Start off by asking your business associates for referrals and conduct regular interviews, as though you were hiring an employee. Just because they are a virtual service provider doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have the same high standards you would expect from an employee. Start with the things that feel easiest for you. As you begin delegating tasks and overseeing them instead of doing them, you will become more and more confident in your new systems. Having solid policies and procedures helps make this transition smoother.

I have use 123Employee and had good success. They are based in the Philippines and managed in the US.

HubStaff Talent is a directory of VA’s that you can access to hire a VA directly: https://talent.hubstaff.com/

BrickWorkIndia.com has several different models to engage with them. https://www.brickworkindia.com/engage-us/

Habiliss.com has several models as well. They do have a pay as you go model that can make it accessible and affordable for most. https://www.habiliss.com/virtualassistant-howitworks/

And there is also Fiverr.com. Fiverr uses the basic concept of $5 for a job. Always read reviews before engaging a contractor on Fiverr. Also, review portfolios if possible. Fiverr is not always just $5. So be sure to check out what the actual pricing is and what is included.

2. Kick the Bad Habits

It is time to kick old habits, especially the bad ones!! Make sure that you are creating habits that are effective and getting rid of the old ones!

Are you stuck in the dark ages, doing things just because you’ve always done it that way? Analyze your business during the last year.

Did you launch any programs? Were the results better or worse than you expected?

Are there any new software programs or apps that will make your work more efficient?

Are you still keeping your books in a handwritten ledger or are you ready to convert to a computer software program?

Delegate tasks; find a new software; plan out new programs or updates; these are all things you can start doing today, not to spend money unnecessarily but to breathe some excitement into your business.

3. Create an Actual Plan

Create a plan. We use Best Year Yet for strategic planning in Compass Rose Consulting and with our clients. It is simple, effective and helps to keep me on track and focused. The program includes a yearlong subscription to our management software. You can complete the program online with our self guided workshop or in person with me or via skype or zoom. The important thing is to create a plan that you can use and follow. Put your projects onto a calendar and work towards achieving those goals. Without a plan, your actions are meaningless. You might decide to work on something unrelated to your goals or you might delay your own deadlines in order to put client business ahead of your own work. A business plan is your blueprint to reaching your goals, no matter how lofty they may seem. Seeing this plan daily will give you something to focus on, therefore increasing your daily productivity.

Overwhelmed at the Idea of Planning? Have No Fear!

Join me for my free webinar, Why You Need a Million Dollar Plan for a Million Dollar Business, where we will discuss exactly how to set your goals and how to break those goals down into doable action steps. While everyone’s goals will be different, we all have to create a roadmap and learn how to take real action. There’s no excuse not to grow your business this year! Learn more here http://compassroseconsulting.com/product/million-dollar-plan/

The Marketing Keys to Success

Key 1 – Do Your Research

In marketing, hard data is everything. You can’t base your marketing on your gut feelings or assumptions you have about your market. These assumptions may not be accurate and, in fact, they could be completely wrong.

This is why we conduct market research. Research involves gathering objective data about your market so that you can use it to make informed decisions based on facts.

In years past, before the wonders of the Internet, marketers had to pay large sums of money and invest a great deal of time to conducting research. Traditional methods include focus groups, direct mail campaigns, surveys, and one-on-one meetings with customers. These methods weren’t cheap. The fact that companies invested so much of their financial resources toward this research shows you just how important it is.

You may feel that you have your finger on the pulse of your market, but the data your research yields may surprise you. Through this research, you need to not only pinpoint the exact demographics of your market, but also how your customers think about your products, your business, other brands they like, and how they spend their money.

There is only one place to get this information. You have to go straight to the source – your market.

Understanding Your Market

An essential part of your marketing plan is to identify your target market. You have to know as much as possible about the people who buy from you. You need to look at large-scale trends among your market as a group, as well as the thoughts and feelings of individuals within this group.

You can gain this data through direct communication with members of your market or through observation. Direct communication, such as conducting surveys or asking questions to members of your market, is very useful. But observation also has its advantages.

When you ask questions directly, a person may feel that they’re put on the spot. They may give you the answer they think you want to hear. Observation shows not what they say but what they actually do. It’s also very easy to observe your target market online through things like social media, online forums, blog comments, and so on.

What you need to research:

Customers. Get a clear understanding of the demographics of your market, their needs, and what factors influence their buying decisions. You also need to segment your market, dividing it into groups according to important differences within it.

Market Dynamics. This includes patterns in your market’s behavior that occur over time. These patterns could be seasonal, occurring at different times throughout the year, or they could be longer-term patterns that stretch over years or decades.

Products. Your research should include what products similar to yours are already on the market. You need to know where your products fit in to the overall scheme of things. It’s also important to know what your competitors are offering so that you can offer unique value with yours.

Industry. Through research, you should look for current sales in your industry. Each industry has benchmarks which state the best and worst performance level in that specific industry.

Suppliers and Other Businesses. Locate suppliers and other businesses you’ll need to rely on when your marketing gets underway.

Market research is ongoing. It’s not something you do just once and then forget about. You need to constantly research your market because it changes. You’ll need to incorporate these changes into your marketing plan.

Action Steps

Start with some basic research on the above list. Look at the overall economy and current marketing trends. Find out about the people in your market and create a simple profile. Learn about your industry.

Try to look for data that shows trends over time. This is important because you can often get an inkling of future trends by looking at past trends

Make points of contact with your customers and give them a chance to express their opinions to you. You can do this through forums, social media or other online groups.

Key 2 – Hone Your Marketing Mix

Another important element of your marketing plan is what’s called the marketing mix. Your marketing mix includes the specific details of your plan. From these details, you can derive the strategies and tactics you’ll put into place to reach your goals.

This is referred to as a ‘mix’ because every business’s marketing is different, so you need a combination of factors in your strategy. To define your marketing mix, start with large business goals and work your way down to the smaller details. Each strategy and tactic is related directly to the attainment of one of your business goals.

An important part of the marketing mix is that it’s diverse. You don’t employ just one tactic and call that a marketing plan. When you have many diverse tactics, it multiplies your efforts and allows you to reach and effectively communicate with every segment of your market.

The 4 P’s

To help you formulate your marketing mix, you should think in terms of the 4 P’s:

PRODUCT – Your products or services; in other words, what you’re offering.

PRICE – The price at which you set the product. This price should conform to the market and its expectations.

PLACE – Where you can put your offer in front of your market. This includes distribution channels and all other factors involved in getting the goods to buyers.

PROMOTION – How you can promote the product and spread the word.

PRODUCT is the simplest consideration. This is what you’re offering. Consider the products’ features and how they benefit the buyer. Look at similar products on the market and determine how yours is different or better. Try to figure out which unique problem of your market it solves.

PRICE is fairly straightforward as well, but there’s an important point to keep in mind. Your price should be based on the perceived value in the eyes of your market, not the actual cost. This is why it’s good to look at the pricing and sales of similar products. Your customers expect to buy a certain type of product at a certain price. You need to price your product according to these expectations. Cheap is not necessarily good if your customers expect the item to have a higher price tag.

PLACE refers to the location online or offline where you sell your product. The idea is to find out where your target market is and likes to shop and to put your offer where they are.

Finally, there are many different things you can do with PROMOTION. The whole idea is to spread awareness of your product and brand, both online and off. Again, start with your target market. Consider many types of promotions, both online and offline, and determine which kinds would be most effective for gaining the attention of your customers.

Once you have each of these 4 P’s defined, test your marketing mix from a customer’s perspective. Put yourself in the shoes of your customer and ask questions such as these:

Action Steps

Draft each of the 4 P’s for your business and its products. If you have a segmented market, you may want to do the same for each segment.

Test your 4 P’s from a customer’s point of view.

Key 3 – Monitor Your Results

Just as you need objective data in order to formulate your marketing plan, you also need follow-up data to keep it current. You can obtain this data through monitoring. Monitoring your marketing shows you exactly what’s working and what’s not so that you can make changes to your strategy. Just as the objective data you discover about your market may surprise you and destroy your assumptions, so can this follow-up data.

Monitoring means not so much watching sales but watching your customers. Like every other part of your marketing plan, it should be based on your customers and their tastes. Once you start your campaign, pay attention to what they say, do and think in regards to your offering and promotions. Watch how they react.

You should also stay abreast of changes in the market or in your industry. These changes could be the cause behind changes in your customers’ behavior.

There are many tools available for monitoring the progress of your marketing plan. You just need a few that are good and reliable, and give you the specific data you need.

With these tools in place, you can monitor your marketing by setting goals milestones, and seeing whether your efforts reach these goals or not. They need to be measurable so that you can tell whether your tactics are working or not. Decide how you’ll identify success or failure based on these goals and milestones.

Where you encounter success, replicate your efforts and refine so that they’re even more fruitful. For example, if you find that posting a weekly blog increases traffic to your website, keep posting that weekly blog. You may even want to post two per week or add videos to the mix.

On the other hand, where you find results that don’t add up, this is where you need to change your tactics. If you’re placing banner ads on websites similar to yours and the trickle of traffic they’re bringing you isn’t worth the money you’re paying to place them, this is a tactic you should stop.

Look for weaknesses or gaps. Like your failures, there are areas that can be improved. You can tweak them until they’re in line with your marketing objectives.

Action Steps

Track sales, leads, visits to your website, and any other metrics that are related to your marketing goals.

Set benchmarks you can reach that will define success for you.

Put together a plan for following up with your customers after purchase. Ask them what they liked about the experience of why they left for a competitor.

THE 3 KEYS you’ve learned in this report offer just a basic outline of what your marketing plan should entail. There is much more involved in creating a good plan. You need to identify your unique value proposition, state your goal or vision, define your goals and objectives, and create a budget.

This is just a start. If you want to know how to craft a winning marketing plan step-by-step with more details and examples, please check out my course. It leads you through the process one section of your marketing plan at a time. By the time you’re finished, you’ve already brainstormed and sketched the major sections. Please check it out.

http://CompassRoseConsulting.com/strategic-marketing-simplified

During this 4+-session workshop I guide you through a complete marketing plan development. You can you leave with your marketing strategy.

Are You Winging it? OR Do you have a solid marketing plan?

Do you have a solid business plan? Marketing plan? Strategic plan? Or are you winging it and hoping?

Creating a plan and sticking to it can improve your results. A plan becomes your blueprint for success. We most often see small businesses winging it, because business development is not their knowledge base. They are wonderful at their craft, but creating a plan and living that plan is not in their ‘wheel-house’.

Developing solid strategies and tracking those strategies gives you the real world information that you need to move your business forward in a predictable and reliable way.

This is especially true for your marketing. You need to have a Marketing Plan….

Marketing isn’t simple. To do it right, it requires a great deal of planning. Small businesses without massive marketing budgets have to handle this aspect of their business themselves or outsource in an affordable way. To do this effectively, either way it should be part of YOUR plan and not just a hope.

This is why businesses create a marketing plan. A marketing plan is a detailed document that includes the data you need to make marketing decisions and set a course of action that you can implement immediately. Drafting a marketing plan takes a great deal of time and work, but in the end, the benefits to having a plan are worth the effort that you have put into it.

Here are a few questions to get you started.

Who Is Your Target Market?

If you’re already selling, take a look at your existing customers. Who are they? What do they like about your company’s products? Try to recall any positive feedback you’ve gotten from them. Naturally, if your brand resonates with these individuals, it will resonate with others like them.

It sounds simple but so many business owners tell us that EVERYONE is their ideal customer or ANYONE is their ideal. Defining your true customers is an exercise that is worth your time. It directly IMPACTS your marketing strategies and tactics.

If you don’t already have customers, defining your target market may take a bit more work. Look at companies that offer similar products to yours. Who is buying from them? Who could benefit from your products? Try doing some market research to glean some idea of who your target market is.d

What Makes Your Products or Services Unique? Why You? How Do You Stand Out?

There are bound to be other companies out there selling goods or services similar to yours. So, what makes yours different? Why would someone buy from you and not another company? Think about it for yourself, why do you buy from one company instead of another? Is it the product or the customer service, the location? There is always something that causes the person to hit that BUY button.

If the unique qualities of your products don’t come to mind immediately, some work needs to be done. Do some soul searching and look for the strengths of your products. Write down everything that you love about your product/service. Include what you have heard from your customers.

If, in the end, you find that your product unfortunately resembles basically everything else on the market, how can you differentiate it to make it unique?

What Do You Want Your Marketing to Achieve?

Every business takes for granted that it needs to market, but why? The ‘why’ is critical. You need to identify exactly what you hope to achieve through your marketing because this will guide all of your efforts and help you choose which tactics are most appropriate.

Are you trying to build your email list?
Do you want buyers directly on your website?
Is your marketing for new leads?
WHAT is a critical question.

Once you know who your target market is, what’s unique about your product or service, and what you want to get out of your marketing efforts, you’re ready to get started with your marketing plan.

Winging it in business is most often not a good strategy. Spending money on marketing with HOPE that it will work is a waste of money. If you are like most small businesses you do not have money to waste.

Learn more about creating your marketing plan with our new report….3 Keys to Marketing Success

How to guarantee that all your marketing is focused in the right direction….and you’re NOT wasting valuable time

What 4 things every marketing professional thinks about BEFORE doing anything

The most important part of any marketing efforts, no matter how big or small your company is

The action steps you can take RIGHT NOW to make your marketing pay off